Date Night
by stareyed in LA
Summary: Companion piece to Georgia Rose. While waiting for Scar to come around, Ellis and Josie decide to go on a date in a nearby quarter. But during a zombie apocalypse, a date is anything but typical. Ellis/OC. Rated T for alcohol use and language.


"Now that we're stuck in this dump 'till Scar comes 'round, what do you feel like doing now?"

Ellis perked his head and found his girlfriend of only a couple of hours looking back at him. Josie sat up against the opposite wall with one arm resting on a bent knee and one leg stretched out in front of her. They were sitting alone in an abandoned bedroom of a safe house. Or they think it was a bedroom before the Infection. There was a bare mattress sitting in one corner, along with an empty dresser missing a drawer, and a bedside cabinet with a pair of broken sunglasses as its only content. Posters for bands like Megadeth and Slayer were still tacked to the walls. The safe house itself had once been a rather nice town house, with white stucco walls, blue shutters that still looked pristine despite the neglect the place has been through in a span of three months, and colorful silk flowers planted in elegant planters. Ellis figured the house once belonged to a family since it was in a nice, residential part of New Orléans. Josie disagreed, saying it had to be college students since most of the furniture here was cheap and looked like it was second-hand.

"Dunno. You got any playin' cards? Beer? Heck, we can scavenge this place for a board game," Ellis suggested.

Josie shook her head. "And I sure as hell am not asking Nick," she added. She was still pissed at him and Scar for spying in on her and Ellis back at Ducatel though it happened nearly two weeks ago.

"You wanna talk," Ellis asked, "girls like talkin' for hours, right?"

Josie again shook her head. "Not this gal."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The other survivors traveling with them were either down stairs or in some other part of the safe house. A peal of laughter broke out downstairs, followed by Phoenix shouting, "Serenity, get over here. Flame's going nuts with this laser pointer I found and its so cute!"

"Ya know, you did ask me out on a date earlier," Ellis began.

"And your point is," Josie asked.

"You wanna go out on that date," he suggested, "it won't be to anythin' fancy. Just hanging around New Orléans. Killin' zombies and kickin' ass. Probably catch a movie if we have the time."

Josie snorted in laughter. Ellis couldn't help but crack a smile. It was so rare to see Josie smile. It was as if her face was permanently fixed on a scowl. Now that he could see what she looked like when she was happy, Ellis had to admit, Josie was really pretty when she smiled. It softened the sharp, hawk-like harshness of her face.

"Sure, why not," Josie said, "it beats sitting 'round here and doin' nothing."

Five minutes later, Ellis and Josie were making their day down the stairs to the first floor. The small first floor area consisted of a living room and an adjacent dining room. A further tour of the safe house earlier that day revealed a small kitchen in the back and a paltry supply of canned food. Josie drew the strap of her backpack over her shoulder as she reached the ground floor. Ellis insisted that she bring her backpack with her.

"Just in case we find anything like food or medical stuff," he said as they walked out of the bedroom.

"Why don't we just lie and say we're gonna go scavenging," Josie suggested, "face it, Nick is going to rip us for goin' out on a date."

Josie and Ellis found a couple of survivors in the living room. Scar was still unconscious on the sofa, with Nick sitting beside her and stroking her hair as she slept. Serenity and Phoenix crouched down behind a dining room table, giggling as Flame jumped at and clawed after the little red light that darted across the walls. Joshua sat in a worn arm-chair in a corner, flipping through a Stephen King novel.

"Hey, we're gonna go on a scoutin' mission," Ellis announced to the others. Josie made her way to the safe house door and removed the bar that kept them shut out from the infected outside. "We'll be back before sundown."

Nick muttered something in a low voice that neither Ellis nor Josie could catch. Just as Josie was about to kick the door open, they heard Coach shout from the kitchen, "you kids watch your selves out there."

"We will, Dad," Josie shouted. She was already out the door. Ellis followed and closed the door behind them. As soon as she was sure the door was shut, she turned to Ellis and said, "you'd think Nick would say something snarky about us going out?"

"It's Scar," Ellis said, "Nick is always moody when she's down."

"What a wuss," Josie grumbled, jumping off the stoop and landing on her feet. Ellis followed suit.

"Hey, cut Nick some slack," Ellis said, "if that was me instead of Scar, you'd be freaking out."

"How do you know," she asked as she walked out on the street. Ellis didn't answer. In all honesty, he didn't know how his girlfriend would react in that situation.

The street outside of the safe house was void of any kind of life, living or dead. It was a residential street lined with town houses painted with colourful doors and shutters with dying plants hanging from the iron-grill balconies. Some of the cars, many of them dirty with cracked windows and dented doors, were still parked at the curbs, waiting for their drivers to come back.

"You ever been to New Orléans before," Josie asked, hoping that maybe Ellis knew his way around the city.

Ellis shook his head. "Me an' Keith always talked about goin' here but we never did."

"Me neither," Josie said, "I've always wanted to come here for Mardi Gras with my mates back home. But it costs a fortune to fly from Western Australia to the States."

Ellis pointed down one street that broke off into a "T" intersection. "I remember seeing a bunch of shops down there as we were headin' to the safe house. Why don't we try there?"

"Whatever you say," Josie answered, "I'm game for anything now."

The couple, armed with backpacks, hunting rifles, extra clips of ammunition, and mêlée weapons (an axe for Josie and a katana for Ellis), walked down the quiet, dead street. Once they reached the T-intersection, they made a left turn and walked down another residential street for a mile and a half. Like the street with the safe house, this new road was just as silent. Once in a while they would find an infected and quickly dispatch it.

"This is too easy," Josie remarked as she dislodged the axe blade from the skull of one of the zombies. "You'd think there'd be more zombies here. As in the street would be crowded with the undead. Like in the movies."

"Maybe someone killed them all as he was passing through," Ellis suggested as he sheathed his katana.

"Like this Chicago Ted bloke I've been hearin' about" Josie said. "The one no zombie is safe from?"

"I'd believe it," Ellis said as they continued down the street. Once they turned another corner, they found themselves looking into another deserted neighborhood. The street was lined with store fronts painted in coral pinks, apple greens, and daisy yellows with decorative, iron grills framing the second story balconies and bright green ivy snaking its way up the walls and around the posts. The boarded up windows and broken doors, along with the abandoned cars and the wilting plants rotting away in their fancy planters lent an air of neglect to what would have been a thriving street. And then there were the zombies.

There were twenty to thirty zombies idling by in the quarter. They shambled aimlessly through the street or rested against lamp posts and walls, never noticing for a moment there were two living people among them. Ellis and Josie quickly ducked down behind a large, dirty white minivan with the slogan "Goldie's Catering, where everything is just right" painted on the sliding doors and peered over the side.

"This is nothing," Ellis whispered. "We can take them out in a jiffy."

Josie said nothing and instead nodded her head in agreement. "Got a pipe bomb," she asked.

Ellis slung off his backpack and started rummaging through it. "No. You?

Josie searched through her bag. "Shit, I don't. I thought I grabbed one when we were leaving the safe house."

Ellis and Josie clambered to the top of the van and crouched down on the roof. Josie flattened herself on the roof with her rifle in her arms, peering into the scope and scanning her targets.

"Wait, before we do anything, I got an idea," Ellis suggested as he readied his rifle.

"Yeah, I'm listening," Josie replied, still looking into the scope.

"Why don't we turn this into a game," Ellis said, "whoever kills the most zombies wins and the loser has to buy the winner a drink."

"Sure, if we can find a pub that hasn't been looted out," Josie said. "Alright. On the count of three, we start shooting. One... two... three!"

On the "three", two bursts of gunfire rang out on the street. The zombies crumpled to the ground one by one with each round of gunfire. Meanwhile, the two amateur snipers remained at their post, loudly calling out numbers as they shot at their targets. Within minutes, Ellis and Josie had ceased fire. The smoke cleared out, revealing that their miniature rampage had left no zombified survivors.

"I got sixteen," Josie announced. "How'd you do, El?"

"Nineteen," he replied. Josie pouted when she realized she now owed her date a drink. "And for the record, I like my beer ice-cold. Not warm like what you Aussies are used to."

"That's the British who like warm beer," Josie corrected him as she jumped off the van's roof. "We prefer ours cold. What's next? You're gonna offer me a Foster's?"

Ellis stepped off from the front hood of the van and walked up to his date. "Why not? Don't Australians love Fosters?"

Josie laughed and shook her head, "Hell no! Fosters is, like, slang for 'piss water'. I prefer Coopers. Haven't seen a bottle of it since I left home though. Anyway, now that I owe you a drink, what'd you prefer? Can't make any promises, but I'll try."

"Beer," Ellis answered. "I don't care what brand."

He and Josie stopped in front of a deserted pharmacy. The nailed-up boards were broken into and the ground littered with broken glass. Most of the shelves inside were empty, though there were boxes and bottles littered around the floor.

"Hold up, maybe we can find something in here," Josie said, "like med supplies. Or booze. We did say we were going scavenging. Might as well try to look for something to show that we did."

With that, Josie gingerly stepped into the deserted store through the broken display window. Ellis followed suit. "Did I ever tell you the time Keith tried brewing beer," he asked when he noticed a peeling, faded advertisement for Picky Pieter's Pale Ale, which boasted being"South Africa's Favourite Beer since 1979". "The liquor store near his house jacked up the prices and Keith figured he could save some money by makin' his own beer. Problem was that he couldn't brew it in the house, on account his Ma was convinced that all alcohol was the Devil's Drink. So he got this old distillery and set it up in a backroom of the garage-"

Josie held up a hand to silence him. "Shush, I think I hear something."

The couple stood in silence, listening for any noise with bated breath. After only a minute, they heard the noise again. A low, rumbling grunt coming from a back store-room.

"Blimey, I think it's a Tank," Josie whispered. Her eyes widened when she heard the grunt again.

"No need to panic," Ellis said in a low voice. "All we have to do is just back out to the street."

"Right." Just as they began walking towards the display window, they heard the unmistakable, shrill laugh of a jockey. The two grabbed their guns and pointed it towards the broken front window. A small, hunched over figure covered in scabby, pink skin and a rotting, dirty t-shirt and running shorts scampering down the street.

"Ya gotta be kiddin' me," Ellis groaned when he realized the hunched over, jumping thing was a Jockey.

The Jockey, as if responding to the Southerner's statement, let out a shrill squeal before making its way to the looted pharmacy. Josie and Ellis grabbed their guns and began firing on the Jockey, but it dodged the hail of bullets before leaping onto Ellis' face!

"Jesus Christ, is this thing humping me," Ellis frantically shouted, trying to gain his footing and steer himself away from the back storage room while the Jockey continued to grab hold of his face, cackling wildly as it scratched at his face and neck. It dragged Ellis into counters and shelves, knocking them down in the process. Josie continued to fire at the Jockey, but it evaded her bullets.

"Oh, fuck this," Josie shouted when she realized that shooting the Jockey would do no good. She threw aside her rifle and took up her ax, chasing after the Jockey and Ellis and hacking into the Jockey's back with her ax. Finally, after several frantic minutes, she was finally able to kill the Jockey.

It let out one last whinny, loosening its grip around Ellis' head, before collapsing to the ground in a pathetic heap. Josie kicked the body against the wall before hurrying to Ellis' side. But just as she reached him, she has a sudden sensation as if something heavy had smashed into her chest, knocking the breath out of her and sending her flying several feet back and into a pile of boxes.

"Josie," Ellis shouted before he too was thrown across the pharmacy by the mystery assailant. His head made contact with the wall and he collapsed to the ground.

Once she regained her bearings, Josie looked up to see a hulking pink mass charging towards her and Ellis. It was the Tank from the back room and it was looking to destroy the survivors who had awoken him. She instinctively reached around her back for her rifle before realizing she never got a chance to retrieve it after the encounter with the Jockey. All she had to defend herself was the ax.

The Tank roared loudly in anger. It swung his meaty arm in Josie's direction. She ducked, flattening herself against the floor before crawling through the mess of scattered boxes and fallen shelves. A burst of gunfire rang out and the Tank turned to find Ellis, blood dripping down his face, leaning against the counter with a smoking rifle in his hands. The Tank let out a thundering bellow and charged towards him. As it pursued Ellis, who continued to fire round after round into the hulking abomination's skull while dodging its swings and the things it threw in his direction, Josie clambered onto an upright shelving unit, balancing on the top with the ax in her hands.

"Alright Jo, this is no different from being at work," she said to herself as she waited for the Tank to come in her direction. Ellis looked up to see his girlfriend on the shelf with the ax in her hands, smiled, and ran in her direction with the Tank coming after him. Once the Tank was in a reasonable distance, Josie leaped off the unit and landed onto the zombie's shoulders, lodging the blade in its thick neck in the process before it threw her back. Josie let out an involuntary scream as she crash landed into some shelves before collapsing to the floor once more. Just as it turned to finish off the girl who lodged an ax in its neck, the Tank instead reared its head towards Ellis, who continued firing round after round into the monster's thick skull. It raised one bloody, meaty fist, as if to lay a death-blow to the Southern gunman before finishing off the weapon-less girl. But before the Tank could bring its fist down on the first victim, one last bullet found its way into the creature's eye socket, lodging in its brain, and finally felling the muscle mass from Hell. Ellis jumped back as the Tank's body crashed face-first to the floor, causing the empty shelves and leftover merchandise to shake and rattle with the impact.

"Ya alright back there," Ellis asked loudly over the dead Tank and collapsed shelves and boxes. Josie stood up and faced her boyfriend.

"I'm fine, but what about you," Josie asked. She stepped around the Tank, stopping momentarily to yank the ax out of its neck.

"I've had worse," Ellis said.

"Positive," Josie asked. "But what about you? I mean, I saw you crash into a wall head first. You aren't seeing stars or feeling like you're about to keel over, right?"

"Not at all," he said. He rapped his knuckles against his skull. "Ma always said I had a thick skull. The metal plate screwed to it helps too."

"At least let me check it out," Josie said. Ellis sat up against the counter, with her crouching down beside him. She pulled off his cap and ran her fingers through his hair, searching for any gashes. When she found a particularly deep cut that extending to his brow, she shrugged off her backpack and began digging through it, looking for a first aid kit. When she found it, she unzipped it and pulled out a bottle of anti-bacterial spray and a stitching kit.

"That bad," Ellis groaned. Josie nodded her head solemnly. "I think there's a bottle of pills in that bag, you should take it."

"Ya don't need to do that," Ellis protested as Josie uncapped the spray.

"Shut up, Charlie," she said, then stopped and smacked herself in the head. "I called you 'Charlie' again, didn't I?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, before letting a low hiss of pain as Josie cleaned off one of the deeper scratches.

"Sorry, force of habit," she apologized. "I'm just so used to having to fix up Charlie when he gets hurt. Or driving him to the hospital. Or calling an ambulance for him."

Once she was done cleaning off the head wound, she opened the kit and threaded a needle. Ellis took two of the pills in preparation for what was to come.

"You should take some of the pills," Ellis said, "I saw what that Tank did to you."

"I'm fine, Ellis, I've been through worse," Josie said. It was true. Though the pain in her back now dulled to a throbbing ache, it wasn't excruciating. Just really annoying to deal with. She approached him with the needle. "I should warn you, based on first hand experience, this is gonna hurt," she said. "And if you do scream, I promise I won't rip on your for it."

With shaking fingers, Josie punctured the wound with the needle. Ellis yelped in pain.

"Sorry," she hastily apologized. Why, suddenly, did she feel bad for inflicting more pain on him? Maybe, she thought, because he didn't deserve it. It wasn't like all those times, growing up in Perth, where she sent boys to the nurse's office because they laughed at her for her stammer and for wearing pants instead of a skirt with her uniform like the other girls. At least those boys had what was coming to them. "At least your taking this better than I did," Josie remarked.

"Remember back at Whispering Oakes, that day we met and I had to get stitches," Josie said softly, still stitching together the wound. "I was screaming as Scar fixed me up and you were trying to calm me down. You kept telling me that everything was gonna be alright and that I wasn't gonna die from a measly Witch wound."

Ellis nodded, smiling at the memory.

"Then you told me that one story about how you and Keith brought some paintball guns on a roller coaster and thought you had invented a new sport so you called up the patent office," Josie continued, slowly stitching the wound together.

"But they didn't recognize because the patent lady thought we were high and that our new sport was the dumbest idea she'd ever heard," Ellis finished, grinning in the process.

She smiled as she fastened off the thread and cut off the rest of it with a pair of tiny scissors. "And I stopped screaming because I wanted to hear how that story ended. I never got to tell you this, and this isn't because I'm some ungrateful bitch, I just didn't want the others to think I was some little crybaby weakling. But thank you. A lot."

She sat up and planted a kiss on his forehead. Ellis blushed, reaching up and touching the spot where Josie kissed him. Josie, meanwhile, had zipped up her pack and slung it over her shoulder. She held her hand out. Ellis took it and she helped him up onto his feet. "C'mon, let's get outta this dump."

The pair collected their weapons and supplies and hightailed it out of the pharmacy.

"So you have a metal plate screwed to your skull," Josie remarked as they emerged out of the pharmacy. "Since when?"

"I never told you that story," Ellis asked.

"No. You're always telling stories about Keith but none about yourself," she said. They walked out onto the street. It was still mid-afternoon and there were only one or two zombies hanging around a far end of the street. A military jet cut through the clear blue sky overhead, flying in the direction of the bridge. And hopefully where the rescue 'copter will be.

"Keith always had the better stories," Ellis said, "and no one likes a bragger. But since you asked, I got the plate in after falling off the Screamin' Oak two years ago. Cracked my skull real good and hadda stay in the hospital for two months."

"The Screamin' Oak," Josie repeated, "that roller coaster at Whisperin' Oaks? The one we ran the track on while killing zombies?"

"The very same."

"I can see that happening."

Josie paused and reached up to lightly touch one of the deeper scratches on Ellis' face. The wound was still bleeding. "We should probably find a place to hole up in for a coupla hours. Just to rest up in. My head's killing me after that Tank attack."

"There's a bar down the street," Ellis pointed out. He gestured to a sky blue, two-story building with a large wooden sign hanging from an iron post. A closer look revealed the bar was really a jazz club called the Rue Facile. He pushed aside the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. Josie followed suite, clutching the ax to her body.

The interior of the Rue Facile looked pristine compared to the looted out and broken shops neighboring it. All the surfaces were covered in a thick layer of dust, with motes floating about in mid-air, visible in the sunlight that streamed through the shuttered windows. Big glass bottles of liquor and unused glasses lined the bar shelves with the stools pushed up against the counter, waiting for the customers that will never visit the place again. Tables and chairs were pushed up against the walls, clearing the way for a dance floor in front of the stage. Posters for various New Orléans jazz festivals lined the brick walls, along with colourful Mardi Gras masks, old musical instruments, and framed photographs of the club's owners posing with influential jazz musicians and other local celebrities.

"If only my dad was here to see this," Josie remarked as she stepped towards the stage, letting her fingers brush up against the wooden floorboards. "If he knew where I was now, he'd be so jealous."

Ellis, who was walking past the photographs that lined the walls, stopped and glanced at Josie. "You're dad would be jealous that you're in the middle of zombie-infested New Orléans, in an abandoned club?"

"Not just a club, a jazz club," she said, sighing. "Dad's a huge jazz fan. He even plays saxophone for this one jazz group he and a bunch of his mates formed. At least four times a year he goes to all these festivals all over Australia and New Zealand. He's gotten so many awards for it that there's a room in my parent's house just devoted to his jazz stuff. Like a man cave but with more music things than anything else. He even wanted to go to New Orléans coupla years back. This was around the time he and Mum were planning a second honeymoon for their thirtieth wedding anniversary. But Mum thought a trip to the US would be too expensive so they decided to jet to Thailand instead. Believe me, living in Western Australia, it's cheaper to fly to south-east Asia than to anywhere else in the world. But Dad still wants to go to New Orléans. And me and Ellie and Charlie, we were pooling our money together to send Mum and Dad there for his sixty-fifth birthday next year. It's just a shame he might never get the chance."

She smiled, brushing away a tear from the corner of one eye, before turning to face Ellis. "Anyway, why don't we do a check on the upper floors, make sure there's no more zombies, fortify this place, and get hammered off our arses?"

"I got a good one," Ellis began, "I ain't ever been banned from a public place."

He and Josie were sitting on some plushy arm chairs they found on the second floor. A search of the club revealed a second story lounge area, probably a VIP room judging by the luxurious décor and the high quality liquor Josie found in a cabinet. The blue velvet drapes were taken down and the large French windows, which led out onto a balcony decorated with mosaic planters and flowering vines, opened up so sunlight can come through. Ellis and Josie dragged out two of the arm chairs onto the balcony, grabbed a couple of bottles of liquor from the bar downstairs, and opted to play "I Never" to pass the time.

Josie took a swig from a bottle of Jack Daniels. "Movie theatre," she explained, "I showed up drunk to a midnight showing of _The Hunger Games._"

"Why? That movie wasn't that bad," Ellis exclaimed.

"Me and some friends dressed up as the characters," she continued, "I was going as Haymitch so I figured I should be shitfaced if I wanted to stay in character. And then one of the theatre employees tried to confiscate my hip flask, so I popped him in the jaw. My turn."

Josie stared Ellis in the eye. "I've never been to Disneyland."

Ellis didn't take a drink from the Captain Morgan bottle in his hand. "Sorry," he grinned sheepishly. "Should've gone with Disneyworld."

"Damn," Josie muttered before taking a sip.

"Ok, I ain't ever... hold on. I ain't ever been an extra in the _Lord of the Rings_," Ellis said before bursting out into laughter at the ridiculousness of his statement.

"That's New Zealand," Josie corrected him, "and since I'm not from there, you have to take a drink."

Ellis tipped the open Captain Morgan bottle into his mouth and drank. "What'ya got for me next," he said, resting the bottle on one knee.

"I've never wrestled with a gator," Josie said, smiling.

Ellis grinned at her and said, "you're in luck" before taking another drink of rum.

"Was this around the time you and Keith tried to piss of a coupla gators so they could fight," she asked.

"Nah, that was a few months later," Ellis said. "Got the scars to show for it. You wanna see?"

"Sure." Ellis set down his rum bottle and hiked his shirt up his torso. The medium-sized, jagged, purplish scars left over from the gator attack were still visible, forming an oval shape on the side of the man's torso. Josie reached out and lightly touched one of the scars.

"I don't think Charlie's ever gotten a scar this cool," Josie remarked, drawing back her hand. Ellis pulled down his shirt and sat back in the arm-chair. "I mean, he got bitten on the hand by a crocodile once. But it was a baby and you don't even see the scar unless you're standing really close to him."

"What was he doing with a baby crocodile," Ellis asked.

"Something not nearly as cool as what Keith would do," Josie replied. "You wanna ask me another question?"

"Sure. This is kind of a serious one," Ellis began, "I ain't ever had a steady boyfriend."

Josie took a sip of whiskey. "I was eighteen," she said, "but we broke up after a couple of months. It's something I don't want to talk about, really... I've never had a steady girlfriend."

Ellis shook his head. Josie sighed and took another sip of whiskey. She now had a half-empty bottle and worried that if Ellis continued to deny whatever statement Josie threw at him, she would return to the safe house really drunk. And that was just a risk she could not take.

"Why not," she asked. "You're a great bloke. You're funny and you're handsome. Why wouldn't a girl go out with you?"

Ellis shrugged his shoulders. "I tried. But the girls weren't into me. And I was too busy hanging with Keith and Dave to notice them."

"Those girls are missing out," Josie remarked softly.

"I never lost anyone really close to me since the zombie apocalypse started," Ellis said.

"Not even Keith and Dave," Josie asked.

"The zombies are going to have to try real hard to take down Keith and Dave," Ellis said. "And my ma, she's a real tough lady. She once beat up a guy who tried to assault one of her friends. That's how tough she is."

"That's more badass than my mum," Josie remarked.

Ellis pointed to the whiskey bottle in Josie's hands. "So you're not gonna drink?"

Josie shook her head. Ellis uncapped his bottle and took a sip.

"It's not like I'd know," Josie said, "last I heard from my family back home was that Australia was going closing off it's borders and going into quarantine. Plus, we're the most badass country on Earth. Considering what we have for wild life, dealing with zombies would be a piece of cake for us. So no, I haven't lost anyone. And I am sure my whole family is sitting at home right now, eating dinner like any other night, and praying that I come home safe and sound. Which I will, obviously."

Ellis, by now, was looking up at the sky. The sun by now had disappeared, sinking past the New Orléans skyline and leaving streaks of orange and pink light in the sky in its wake.

"It's getting late, we should get goin'," Ellis said.

"Yeah, you're right," Josie replied. The two got up and began packing supplies into their bags. During the search of the club's upper floors, they found a first aid kit containing Tylenol, a couple of rolls of bandages, and ointment, some disposable lighters, a couple of bottles of water, and a box of cereal bars. As they returned to the first floor to retrieve some more bottles of liquor from the bar, they encountered a sight that stopped them in their tracks.

The street was now filled with zombies. At least three dozen or so infected roamed the street. Some time during the afternoon, Ellis and Josie weren't sure since they were on the second floor playing "I Never", they must have found their way back into this particular neighborhood.

"C'mon, let's just grab a coupla bottles for the road and go," Josie said. She jumped over the counter and began filling her pack with bottles of bourbon and vodka. "Long as we're in here, and they're out there, they won't get us."

She was sure of that. She and Ellis barricaded the entrance to the club with furniture and heavy crates. But just as Josie finished that sentence, they heard a shattering of glass coming from one of the windows. They whipped their heads around to a sight they did not want to see.

One of the zombies had managed to break one of the windows, one decaying arm reaching into the club, trying to grasp for anything its long, bony fingers could latch on to.

"You got any more bullets," Josie asked. She had stopped loading her bag with liquor.

Ellis checked his gun clip. "No, I used up most of them taking out the Tank."

Another window shattered and now another zombie was trying to get into the club. The only thing stopping it was a wooden window frame. But it was only a matter of time before the old wood gave out and the zombie figure out how to get into the club and to the two living people inside.

"On second thought, forget the booze, let's just get out of here," Josie said. She zipped up the bag and slung it over her shoulder. Ellis charged up the stairs leading to the lounge, with Josie following after him. They ran back to the balcony and looked over the side. By now, more zombies found their way back to the street. The numbers had swelled to over sixty infected.

"You think they could have smelled us from down there," Josie asked.

Ellis shook his head. "I've no idea," he said, "all I know is that if we tried to get back to the safe house through the street, we wouldn't make it past the front door of the club."

"You're right." Josie leaned back against the rail and looked up to the roof of the club. A spark flickered in her mind. "You think we can make it up to the roof?"

Ellis looked up at the third floor and the roof as well. "I don't see why not. We can leap from the roof tops back to the safe house. It's not that far from here."

From downstairs, they heard another sound of breaking glass, accompanied by loud groans and moans. Then a shuffling of feet. Ellis and Josie exchanged worried glances before taking off down the balcony.

The Rue Facile was located on a street corner that took up a quarter of the block. As Ellis and Josie rounded the corner, something silver in the distance caught Ellis' eye.

"Up ahead," he shouted pointing out the silver object in their path. As they got closer, they realized that what they were looking as was a ladder that led up to the third floor. Behind them, they could hear the shuffling of feet as the zombies neared them. And just out of the corner of her eye, Josie could have sworn she saw the dark shadows of more zombies as they emerged on the second floor.

"Come on," Ellis shouted. Josie quickly climbed up the ladder with Ellis following closely behind. Once they reached the third floor, Josie quickly retraced the ladder so the zombies could not reach the third floor. As she finished, she heard the unmistakable sound of glass breaking followed by a scream.

"Josie," Ellis shouted. Josie whipped her head around to find her boyfriend being pulled into a third story flat by a zombie wearing a filthy LSU sweatshirt. "Help me!"

She took her ax and lodged it in the zombie's skull. It loosed its grip around Ellis' shoulders, falling back to the ground while she caught him in mid-stumble. She looked up from his shoulder to find a sight that no survivor wanted to see. Josie found herself looking into a dark room containing half a dozen zombies.

Josie lunged for her ax but Ellis grabbed her by the hand. "We don't have time for this," he shouted, dragging her to the ladder. The zombies rushed towards them as Ellis and Josie began climbing the last ladder that led to the roof. Just as Josie reached the roof, she felt a sharp jerk on her leg and almost lost her grip on the ladder. She looked down to find one of the zombies grabbing her leg.

"Oh no you don't," she shouted, kicking the zombie in the face with her boot, causing it to lose its hold on her leg before crashing to the ground, it's head cracking and leaking out an oily black fluid as it landed. Once Josie reached the roof top, she and Ellis grabbed the ladder and tossed it aside so that no zombie could reach them.

It was now late twilight. The sky overhead was an inky, dark blue with a faint pink and orange glow coming from the horizon before fading entirely and giving way to the night. In the distance, the Veterans Memorial Bridge, still strung up with big orange fairy lights, shone up against the darkening sky like a shimmering beacon. Several buildings were also lit up, as were the many street lights below. From where Ellis and Josie were standing, it felt like New Orléans had never been under siege by the undead. Besides the absence of people, it looked like any regular night.

"Weird how the city keeps on going despite all this shit going on," Josie remarked, slinging off her pack and taking out a flash light. "It's like New Orléans doesn't know when to stop."

Ellis continued to look out into the horizon, at the bridge where their rescue hopefully was still waiting for them. Josie walked up to the edge of the roof before taking a seat beside him.

"Just think of this, we're gonna be on that bridge tomorrow and flying outta here," Ellis said, smiling. "Zombie apocalypse is great so far, but I miss my old life. I miss Keith and Dave and being at the garage."

"Don't blame you," Josie said, "I'd kill for just one more chance to see my family and my mates again. Speaking of mates."

Josie got up. "We probably should be getting back to the safe house. Nick is gonna be on our throats for staying out past curfew."

"Do we have to?"

"Not unless you want another run-in with the infected."

"Oh, alright. Just give me a minute."

It took an hour to scale the roof tops back to the safe house. Despite it being night out, with limited light on the street in the particular neighborhood they were in and with only a sword to defend themselves with, Ellis and Josie made it back to the safe house without incident. They scaled down a large brick building via a fire escape next door to the safe house. The lights were out in the building the rest of the team holed up in, save for some shadows of candlelight in one of the first floor windows. Josie leaped off the fire escape and on to the balcony of the second story with Ellis following suit.

"Anyway, thanks for the date, we should do this again some time," Ellis said.

"Yeah, once we get rescued," Josie sighed, "it won't be as epic as this one. I mean, what do you even do in a rescue camp anyway?"

"Guess we'll just have to find out," Ellis said before smacking himself in the forehead with the heel of his palm. "Crap, I never got you flowers!"

"You don't have to," Josie said sincerely, "and besides, where would you get flowers? All the shops are closed and the flowers are probably all dead. That and I'm allergic to roses. So you obviously couldn't get me that."

"How about orchids," Ellis asked, plucking off one purple and pink plastic blossom from one of the overhead planters before presenting it to his girlfriend. Josie smiled.

"Orchids," she softly asked, her eyes taking on a misty look as she took the flower from his fingers, "yeah, orchids are perfect. Thank you."

She kissed him on the lips. At first, it was a quick peck on the lips.

"Sorry, I'm not really used to this," Josie apologized, blushing furiously.

"Neither am I, but that don't stop me," Ellis said, smiling, before bringing his hand around the back of Josie's head and bringing her lips to his. This time, it was one of those deep, passionate kisses in which time seemed to come at a standstill as the couple locked lips. Josie wrapped her arms over Ellis' shoulders and neck while his hands snaked through her brutally short blonde hair. After several minutes, they broke off their kiss. Josie kept on the look out for infected while Ellis knocked on the safe house door. Within minutes, the bar that served as a lock was taken off and the door swung open to reveal Nick with a crooked smirk on his face.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Overalls and Crocodile Dundee," Nick said, opening the door wide enough for Ellis and Josie to slip inside. "You get into her pants yet, Overalls?"

Josie's head snapped up at the statement. Whatever softness she had in her face melted away into the stern, hawk-like harshness she always wore. She swung around, one fist raised in the air. "So says the man who can't keep it in his trousers," Josie snapped back. She stepped towards Nick, ready to clobber him like she had clobbered those boys back when she was a schoolgirl attending Phoenix Primary in Perth, before she felt someone grab her first.

"Josie, please don't," Ellis said, stepping in between them, his hand locked around her wrist. "We got enough injured people to deal with."

Josie glared up at her boyfriend's pleading, blue eyes. She brought down her fist at her side. "Fine," she said softly. "C'mon Ellis, I gotta bag full of bourbon and I'm gonna need help finishing it off." Then she stomped up the stairs.

* * *

A/N: This story takes place between Chapters 25 and 26 of "Georgia Rose" by InlovewithNicholas. This is meant to be a companion piece to "Georgia Rose" that is meant to fill in that gap between chapters and to offer a bit of insight into Josie and Ellis' relationship. In other words, I wrote this for fans of "Georgia Rose" but it can also stand as a stand-alone fic.


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